With many people still struggling in the wake of the pandemic, this week’s National Depression Screening Day on Oct. 6 is a reminder to Illinoisans to take stock of their mental health.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports the average delay between the onset of mental illness symptoms and treatment is 11 years.
Mark Heyrman, chair of public policy for Mental Health America of Illinois, said screenings often help people realize they have a medical condition.
“Depression screening is an important tool to help people find out if they have depression,” Heyrman emphasized. “People often don’t know that they’re depressed. They just may think that their feelings are normal, or they may not know that they have a treatable condition.”
Statistics indicate one in five U.S. adults experiences mental illness each year, and about four in ten do not seek treatment. Mental Health America has a free online mental health screening website, at screening.mhanational.org.
Depression’s effect on the country as seen through the data showed people who live with depression are at a 40% higher risk of developing cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and 70% of young people in the juvenile justice system have a diagnosable mental health condition.
Heyrman pointed out depression is one of the costliest diseases in the world.
“The World Health Organization has consistently rated depression as one of the top five in terms of the ‘burden of disease,’ which is a category they use to measure the cost of various illnesses, including mental illnesses,” Heyrman explained. “Depression is always among the most costly illnesses in the world, and certainly here in Illinois and the United States.”
Heyrman added Mental Health America’s screening website, created in 2014, screens for 10 different mental health conditions. He noted use of the website picked up after the pandemic.
“For the first number of years after we started providing this on our website, a few hundred thousand people a year were screening for depression and various other serious mental health conditions,” Heyrman observed. “When the pandemic hit, that went up to several million a year. So now, more than 16 million people have been screened for depression on our website.”
He added the screening is evidenced-based, anonymous and free.
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A study by New Mexico State University shows the number of suicides among U.S. Hispanics is on the rise, in part because they are buying more guns.
Jagdish Khubchandani, public health sciences professor at New Mexico State and the study’s co-author, said suicides by Hispanic adults in the group increased by more than 70% between 2010 and 2020, while their population grew only 25% over the same period.
“I wanted to see what’s happening with Hispanic middle-age people 20 to 64 years,” Khubchandani explained. “Because this is a unique population given their upbringing, their acculturation, experiences in the United States.”
He pointed out Hispanics are using fewer passive, and instead more lethal suicide methods, noting during the study period, firearms were most commonly used among non-elderly Hispanic adults. Researchers analyzed a decade of mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For those in crisis, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is now accessible at 988.
Khubchandani stressed among all the racial groups, Hispanics were the most likely to acquire multiple guns during the pandemic, citing a need to protect themselves or prevent themselves from being victimized.
“But as I wrote in the study, most of the time these guns will be used to kill household members and not be used for protection from bullies and racists,” Khubchandani stated.
Khubhandani reported in the U.S., approximately 100 people die of suicide each day, or 45,000 per year. He added the mortality rate for HIV is 15,000 people per year, and he believes suicide needs the same research attention afforded the immune disorder.
“And all drug companies want to sponsor trials and studies and government wants to fund studies,” Khubhandani observed. “I have not seen many studies funded by the government on suicide prevention for white, nonwhite, male, female; nothing.”
The study also found southern and western regions of the U.S. had the highest suicide rates for non-elderly Hispanic adults in 2020. Colorado had the highest rate, with New Mexico second highest at a rate of about 24 per 100,000 people.
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Nonprofit social workers in New York are seeing a shortage of people coming into the field, abdicating it for telehealth work.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth began to fill the gaps for in-person visits. However, the shift to a semi-virtual landscape has left some nonprofits without applicants to fill open positions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, telehealth visits increased by 154% in 2020.
Angela Piccininni, associate director of clinical services at YES Community Counseling Center, is concerned about the kind of hands-on experience new social workers are getting.
“Prior to COVID, they would have internships in nonprofits and agency-based work at hospitals, similar to ours, which would lead to an exposure of the real missions of social work,” Piccininni recounted. “And after training, we would begin to employ these new graduates.”
One way she feels people could be drawn to in-person work is a re-evaluation of nonprofit- and agency-based social work, with hopes of incentivizing employees. Although it has become widely used, she said it could be a mismatch for people with more severe mental-health problems.
Telehealth marks a turning point for how people receive mental-health treatment, and it could be here to stay. According to a 2021 study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, many clients saw a reduction in their symptoms of mental illnesses when they used telehealth, or a hybrid model.
Piccininni thinks the approach can be limiting, adding there are some things a person might not be able to notice on a computer screen.
“Much of what we do as therapists is observing, and working through nonverbal communication,” Piccininni noted. “You cannot detect that when you’re seeing someone’s head or their shoulders. We’re often finding individuals coming to session, that are in virtual treatment, that are in their car, that are driving or in public settings.”
Social work may be shifting into a virtual environment, but it is not slowing down the growth of the field. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of social workers is expected to grow by 9% nationally during the next decade. New York is expected to see a 6.6% growth in social workers over the same period.
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School districts across the state of New York are facing a shortage of social workers.
According to an audit by the state comptroller’s office, New York City schools are not providing enough social workers per school.
The report showed 423 schools are without social workers, while most of the schools with at least one social worker do not meet the recommended ratio of one social worker to every 250 students. Rural school districts are seeing a retention problem since they cannot afford to compete with their urban counterparts.
Martha Shultz, northeast division director of the National Association of Social Workers New York State Chapter, said a primary issue is noncompetitive salaries, since district leadership might not understand what a school social worker does.
“That stems from this kind of misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, or desire to learn about really what is social work and what can they offer,” Shultz contended. “In schools, there’s been a push for every building to have a school social worker. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that school leadership or even the school board knows what a social worker does at a school. They just know they have to have one.”
Schultz pointed out another part of the problem is a pipeline issue, because many rural colleges and universities do not offer graduate-level social work programs. She has seen numerous empty positions without applicants, with a lack of education by district leadership being a deterrent.
Schultz added social workers might start at the bottom in school districts, despite many years of experience in other areas of social work. The issue of social-worker shortages goes beyond schools and has reached the state’s Office for Mental Health.
Samantha Fletcher, executive director of the National Association of Social Workers New York State Chapter, said social workers are bearing the brunt of the shortage. One challenge she found is the growth in caseloads social workers have to deal with, arguing high caseloads contribute to faster burnout.
“They don’t want to work in a situation where they know they’re in a lose-lose position; that they know they can’t give their clients what they need,” Fletcher explained. “If you’re seeing eight or more clients a day, how do you have time to do a suicide evaluation for another client or deal with a crisis from another client.”
In 2021, two bills were introduced in the state Legislature to address caseload caps for social workers and for child protective service workers. Both are still in committee.
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